Dream On !

Mobile phone throwing is an international sport that started in Finland in the year 2000. It is a throwing sport that is judged by distance or technique.

There are usually four categories in the sport:

* Original (also called ‘Traditional’): an over-the-shoulder throw with the farthest distance winning (best of 3)
* Freestyle: contestants get points for aesthetics and creative choreographics
* Team original: up to three competitors have one throw each with their scores added together
* Junior: for children aged 12 or younger

The phones used vary not just between events but between competitors, with any phone that weighs over 220 grams being acceptable.At some events the choice is down to personal preference from those provided by the event organisers, while others provide only one model of phone.

World and national championships

The Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships have been held annually since 2000 in Savonlinna, Finland. The first national competition was held in Trondheim, Norway in June 2004, with several other countries across Europe also staging their own events. The first winter championships were held in Stoos, Switzerland in February 2005. Commonly, the prize for first place in a national event is entry to the world championships, and the grand prize for winning the world championship is a new mobile phone. Many events are supported by mobile phone recycling organisations and promote the recycling of the phones.

In the UK the championships are held every August at Tooting Bec Athletics Track in London and organised by 8th Day UK and ActionAid Recycling.

“Do you think the people who were trying to reach the top of Everest were not full of doubts? For a hundred years, people tried and lost their lives. Not even their dead bodies came back. But still, more people tried…risking…knowing that they may never come back. Why? Because it was worth it. Because in the very risk something is born inside you: the center. It is born only in the risk. That’s the beauty of risk, the gift of risk.” –Paraphrased from Osho (1931-1990), Indian Professor of Philosophy, Spiritual master.

Consider This:

The gift of risk-taking doesn’t lie in what you achieve by risking – it lies in who you become as a result of the process.

Confident. Engaged. Alive.

Furthermore, it isn’t something you do once in a while – it’s an approach to life.

Open. Exploratory. Daring.

You know it when you let it slip out of your life. You feel stagnant, lethargic, bored. Risks have no shelf life – yesterday’s risks are today’s ego trip. Today is new.

RE-ENGAGE. RE-RISK.

Doug Sundheim, an Executive Coach at Clarity Consulting, suggests to try these questions on onself. 1. Ask yourself the same question, “When in your life did you feel most alive?”2. What were you doing? Why did it feel so good? Which of your core values were you living?3. It’s likely you were taking some risks at the time.4. If you’ve haven’t felt that alive in a while, what could you do to re-engage, to push past your comfort zone?5. Remember, the gift of risk lies not in what you achieve, but in who you become by taking them.

Travelers! Destinations are inconsequential. All that matters is the road. When we say travel we mean it in the broadest sense —exploring and discovering new places, rather than merely speeding through them. The ride and the road equally thrill them, but they’re also intrigued by roadside discoveries, off-road meanderings, and the distinct pleasures to be found at the end of the road.

Its about feeling that invisible pat on the back and hearing that soft whisper from god which says ‘you fool, I gave you life on the blue planet so that you could discover the many people and places that I made for you!’

The Great Indian Roadtrip is an expression of freedom and the spirit of exploring the world around us. It is not just about the thrill of travelling around India on motorbikes but about discovering new routes, the surreal experiences, interacting with strangers, and above all appreciating the diversity and beauty of India. This cannot be understood solely through postcards, desktop wallpapers, lonely planet guides or the many books written by the foreigners. The GIR will bring together all this and preserve the memories in the form of thousands of visuals and videos.

We want desktop adventurers to join in and share our trials, treks and triumphs. We want to encourage members of our generation, and those that came before and will follow, to get off the couch and get out there and try the world out for themselves!

TEENAGE TITANS – For the past month or so, BusinessWeek.com has set out to find Asia’s most interesting examples of this new breed. They asked readers to nominate standout young entrepreneurs 25 or under, and narrowed down the impressive list to a group of finalists.

I am listing out the people who made it from India.

All these young folks share an unbridled enthusiasm and a fierce desire to succeed. Will all of them make it? Maybe not. Yet this much is clear: India’s already dynamic future has turned a little bit brighter with the arrival of this bunch.Sasikanth Chemalamudi
CEO: Habits

A graduate with honors from the Birla Institute of Technology & Science in Pilani, Chemalamudi turned down an offer from outsourcing powerhouse Infosys to pursue his passion for entrepreneurship. He co-launched Habits, a creative learning resources company that encourages more creative thinking with the aid of educational materials such as musicals, plays, and interactive games. Habits is also involved with projects in rural India to encourage self-employment.

Bridle is a mobile applications and services outfit—and that is a good space to occupy given the explosive growth of mobile telephony in India. And Bridle co-founder Gaddipati (the 2001 winner of the Intel CyberFiesta national software development contest) may already have a hit on his hands. The service is called SchoolMATE, and it is a comprehensive student analysis system that allows parents to monitor their child’s progress at school. The service feeds information on conduct, examinations, and report cards to subscribers, and employs technology such as mobile text messaging, the Web, and e-mail. The company has gained about 70,000 subscribers in Hyderabad and Vishakapatnam in India.

The next big platform shift in online gaming will be to mobile handsets, and Kedia thinks his company is positioned to capture that growth. This 25-year-old programmer based in Bombay is founder of MobiTrail, which develops and delivers games to mobile phone users. Its games and applications can run on networks using J2ME, Symbian, and BREW operating systems. The company is developing some hot games of its own and has such clients as Reliant Online Gaming in India and Hong Kong-based Mobile2win, as well as other international customers.

Khekade launched his first business, a Web technology and software applications company, at 17, and has written a book on graphical user interfaces. Now the University of Mumbai-trained engineer and scholarship recipient is trying his hand at the business tourism market. Last year he co-founded Innovation Trip, which sets up U.S.-based workshop-and-trip combos for senior executives in the developing world interested in the latest best-business practices in the States.

Sampat caught the entrepreneurial bug early in life. While still in his teens, he launched his first venture, a streaming online music radio service featuring Indian tunes. His latest venture, launched in 2001, is Convonix. It is an Internet marketing firm with more than 35 employees that helps clients enhance their online traffic and get better placement in search engine results. The company has also developed its own Web analytics and campaign management programs.

Turakhia tried his hand at Internet consulting in high school at age 14 and, two years later, launched Directi Group with $600 borrowed from his parents. In the first month of operations, the business managed to generate enough revenues to return the borrowed amount and get the company rolling. Today, the company is debt-free, has more than 1 million customers for its array of domain name registration, Web hosting, and site building services, and employs more than 250 people. It is one of the fastest-growing domain registration companies in the world. When Turakhia isn’t running the show, he pursues hobbies such as sky diving, paragliding, and flying airplanes.

Japanese toilets are something very special. Everything is raised automatically, the seat is heated and there’s even a small Karcher at 180bar (ok, maybe not 180, but it’s powerful) for the more intimate parts. And now there is an SD slot and an MP3 player!!! Fear not, it’s not integrated into the seat but rather in the control system/computer of the toilet that is situated on the wall! Nice one Toto (the Japanese manufacturer)!
Now it’s up to you to play crap music in the toilet!

BLOGUMENTARY playfully explores the many ways blogs are influencing our media, our politics, and our relationships. Personal political writing is the foundation of our democracy, but mass media has reduced us to passive consumers instead of active citizens. Blogs return us to our roots and reengage us in democracy.

Shot in candid first-person style by director Chuck Olsen, himself an avid blogger, the film features interviews with influential bloggers including Joe Trippi, Jeff Jarvis, Dan Gillmor, John Hinderaker, Jason Kottke and Meg Hourihan. From the rise of Howard Dean to the fall of Dan Rather, from love at first blog to a friend’s suicidal blog post, “Blogumentary” is a fresh and compelling journey into our hyperconnected existence.

Also showing: episodes from “Minnesota Stories,” the vlog edited by Olsen, featuring stories of the normal, the abnormal, and the paranormal in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.

Hiren Shah has found out quite a few parallels btw Salaam Namaste , Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and Osho philosphy. Osho is all for pre – marital and extra marital affairs. Osho says ,generally “People go on living in misery thinking that, “Next life I will find another woman — or another husband — but this life nothing can be done. It is better to accept.” So people remain somehow satisfied, whatsoever the situation is, and they call it contentment — it is only consolation. And they have rationalized all these ugly things in many ways.”

Solution no 1- Pre-marital relationships as a gauge of compatibility- This was shown very well in the movie “Salaam Namaste”:-

“Now this is so illogical. Unless a man or a woman has lived in many pre-marital relationships there is no possibility of choosing a right partner. This is such a simple phenomenan! Unless you have experienced many women and men in your life, how can you choose who is going to be the right person to live with? But they don’t allow any pre-marital relationships, so people start falling in love at first sight — which is nonsense. Then, of course, the same people say love is blind. First they throw acid in your eyes and then they say love is blind! You see the strategy? Don’t allow boys and girls to meet and mingle with each other so that they can experience many people before they decide — don’t allow them. Suffocate their sexual energy!

Pre-marital relationship is a very scientific phenomenon. It has to be allowed, it has to become part of human rights.Tomorrow you may find a far more beautiful woman, a far more beautiful man, then your intelligence will say that it is better to choose. Then why go on being tortured by your past? Remain free for the future, open to the future. So I say only for a longer period, when you decide.

When you have enjoyed many relationships you will be able to choose, you will be able to judge what kind of woman or man suits you, what kind of woman or man is a nourishment.

I am all for pre-marital relationships. Without them man will remain insane.”

Soltuion no 2- Extra marital relationships. Show in the movie “Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna“.
Extra-marital relationships help marriage, they don’t destroy it. It is always good to have a little change, just at the weekend. It does not harm at all. That idea — that if a man starts having a little love affair with some woman other than his wife it will destroy the marriage — is absolutely wrong. It will help, it will renew the relationship, because one gets tired. Man is, after all, human. Don’t ask impossible things! One gets tired — the same woman, the same man. One loses all taste.

If you have to eat the same food every day, like I do, you will get fed up.

Once in a while just a little taste of a new woman, a new man revives your interest in the old woman and the old man. You start thinking, “After all, she is not so bad.” A little change is always good.

I am not against extra-marital relationships. The people who are against them are really teaching you possessiveness in an indirect way.

When I say I am not against extra-marital relationships I am teaching you non-possessiveness.

If a man is tired of the same woman — the same contours, the same geography, the same topography — once in a while a little bit different geography, a little bit different landscape…and he comes home again interested in exploring the old map. It gives a break — a coffee break. And after each coffee break you can again get involved in the same work, the same files, and you open them and you start working…. The coffee break helps you.

If people want to live together in a deep intimacy, they should not be possessive. They should allow freedom. And that’s what extra-marital relationship is: freedom. But people are very strange.”

Salaam Namaste was all about pre-martial exploration and Kabhi alvida na Kehna is about extra marital exploration. Osho or for that matter his great contemporary Krishnamurthy were men too ahead of their times and many of their teachings went unimplemented during their lifetimes.

If only our elders can understand all this :). Btw brilliant work Hiren.

Zoho is an excellent suite of weboffice products, that has been created by an Indian web development company called AdventNet. The company has its HQ in the USA but its entire product development is based out of Chennai. Their products include Zoho Writer (online word processor), Zoho Sheet (online spreadsheet), Zoho Planner (online To-Do list), Zoho Show (online presentations), Zoho Virtual Office, Zoho Creator & Zoho Polls.

Venture funds are now eyeing Indian movies. Chennai-based Pyramid Saimira Theatre is setting up a $150m fund for production and distribution of regional and Bollywood movies.

Pyramid Film Fund will unveil itself over the next nine months in three avatars of $50m each — based on the level of risk and exposure.

The Pyramid group will sponsor around 25% of the fund, while the remaining is being raised from venture funds and institutional investors. The movies that the fund finances — mostly in the mid-budget range of Rs 5-10 crore — will be distributed and exhibited by Pyramid group through its country-wide theatre chain.

Pyramid group, which is currently focused on exhibition markets in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka with around 120 screens, has chalked out plans for country-wide presence with around 2,000 screens by December ‘07. As part of its foray into north India, the group has tied up with Delhi-based developer Spirit Global for presence in 60 malls across Punjab.

Funds’ first project, Dasavatharam, will be released with over 1,000 prints across the country in April next year, and dubbed in several regional languages, including Hindi and Telugu. Talks are currently on to finance few Bollywood movies, including several regional language ones.

Over the last three-four years several corporates, including the ADAG, Tata and Aditya Birla groups have set aside corpus for financing and distribution of movies.

The Principles Always Work…If You Work the Principles
Get ready to transform yourself for success. Jack Canfield, cocreator of the phenomenal bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, turns to the principles he’s studied, taught and lived for more than 30 years in this practical and inspiring guide that will help you get from where you are to where you want to be.

The Success Principles, co-authored with Janet Switzer, will teach you how to increase your confidence, tackle daily challenges, live with passion and purpose, and realize all your ambitions. Not merely a collection of good ideas, this book spells out the 64 timeless principles used by successful men and women throughout history. And the fundamentals are the same no matter what your profession or circumstances—even if you’re a student, stay-at-home mom or currently unemployed.

It doesn’t matter if your goals are to be the top salesperson in your company, become a leading architect, score straight A’s in school, lose weight, buy your dream home or make millions of dollars—the principles and strategies are the same.

After learning the basics of success, you’ll move on to tackling the important inner work needed to transform yourself. Next, get ready to build your “success team” and expand all your most important relationships. Finally, because success always includes financial prosperity, you’ll learn to develop a positive money consciousness along with habits that can ensure you’ll be able to live the lifestyle you want—while keeping the importance of tithing and service central to your financial life.

Taken together and practiced every day, these principles will transform your life beyond your wildest dreams!

Filled with memorable and inspiring stories of CEO’s, world-class athletes, celebrities, and everyday people. The Success Principles will give you the courage and the heart to start living the principles of success today!

You’ll learn:

How to change the outcome of any event, simply by changing your response to it

How to access powerful mentors and friends who’ll open doors for you

How to complete past projects, heal past relationships and process old hurts, so you can embrace the future

How to prepare and be instantly ready when opportunity comes knocking

How to implement the unique time management system that insures you’ll have time to focus on success

How to say “no” to the good, so you’ll have room in your life to say “yes” to the great

How to ask for and get everything you want…from people who can give it to you

Why you should drop out of the “Ain’t It Awful” Club and instead surround yourself with success, positive and nurturing people

How to maximize your success with money, your finances, your future…and so much more

If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got.. Is it not time that you changed for better ?

All of those children who have been struggling to get their parents to buy them the playground-must-have, an iPod, now have the ultimate excuse – “But it’s for my edukashon!”

Pearson Education are to develop educational content for teachers and students which will play on an iPod. What a perfect strong-arm tactic, one that I’d imagine parents will find hard to refuse.

Students will be able to download study guides that work with Pearson’s educational texts and listen to review notes to prepare for exams.

They also hook in the teachers by giving access to podcasts on professional development, helping with lesson preparation and guidance in connecting with students struggling with specific content.

John Couch, Apple’s vice president of Education, gave forth, “Apple’s commitment to education has never been stronger, which is why we’re excited to broaden our relationship with Pearson. Our customers will love having Pearson’s education content on their iPods, and we’re confident that PowerSchool will continue to flourish and grow with Pearson.”

Business Week has done a story on digg.com founder Kevin Rose. Few excerpts from it are here

It was June 26, 4:45 a.m., and Digg founder Kevin Rose was slugging back tea and trying to keep his eyes open as he drove his Volkswagen Golf to Digg’s headquarters above the grungy offices of the SF Bay Guardian in Potrero Hill. This was the day Rose would test everything. Two years earlier, Rose had gambled on his idea to change newsgathering, letting the masses “dig up” the most interesting stories on the Web and vote them onto his online “front page” on Digg.com. Rose had given every last piece of himself to the project — all his time, all his cash, and even his girlfriend, who fought with him after he poured his savings into Digg instead of a downpayment on a house. Today, Digg, Version 3, the one that would go beyond tech news to include politics, gossip, business, and videos, was going live. At 29, Rose was on his way either to a cool $60 million or to total failure.

But for now, Rose is the “It” boy among a new wave of entrepreneurs running the hottest of the top 100 Web 2.0 companies sprinkled around the Bay Area. Together, this network of mostly Valley boys — Six Apart Ltd. co-founder Mena Trott is a rare female among them — fill SF bars like Anu and Wish and Cav and parties at their sparsely furnished lofts.

Rose’s social stock has climbed,too. He has more than 11,000 friends on MySpace. He was a runner-up in blog ValleyWag’s “Hottest Guy in the Valley” contest (think Tom Cruise’s doughier little brother), and he co-hosts a hot weekly video podcast called Diggnation. It’s like a techie version of the Saturday Night Live skit “Wayne’s World.”

At a party for the 50th show, Rose was mobbed by fans and even photographed signing a pretty brunette’s cleavage. The snapshot was posted on Flickr the next day. Video is here n here.
Clearly much has changed since 1999, and Rose and his fellow wealth punks have little in common with the sharp-talking MBAs in crisp khakis and blue button-downs who rushed the Valley as the NASDAQ climbed. In the late 1990s, entrepreneurs were the supplicants, and Sand Hill Road, dotted with venture-capital firms, was the mecca. Dot-commers relied on VCs for the millions needed to buy hardware, rent servers, hire designers, and advertise like crazy to bring in the eyeballs. For their big stakes of, say, $15 million for 20% of a company, venture capitalists received board seats, control of the management levers, and most of the equity.
Now, it’s more like: Maybe we’ll let you throw a few bucks our way — if you get it. Otherwise, get lost.

Digg is emblematic of the ethos of Web 2.0, new consumer and media sites revolving around social networking and do-it-yourself services. Others include YouTube, which serves up some 100 million requested videos a day, rivaling the audience of NBC. Then there’s Facebook, where the college crowd practically lives. The average gamer on Xfire spends an astounding 91 hours a month on the site — it’s like a part-time job. As a result, superhigh valuations are again coming out of the Valley. In a world in which Facebook turns down $600 million deals, the $580 million that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWS ) shelled out for MySpace.com in July, 2005, is widely considered to be a steal.

Rose grew up in Las Vegas. His father is an accountant, and his mom “just chills,” he says. They lived in a three-bedroom house on a cul-de-sac. Standard middle-class America. In 1999 he dropped out of the University of Las Vegas to join the action in Silicon Valley, where he took coding jobs for dotcoms. That led to his gig as the TechTV host, which transferred him to Los Angeles in 2003. But Rose was bored.

So far, Digg’s traffic just keeps growing. And Rose is picking up a bit of swagger. His shyness is fading, and his wardrobe has gotten a hipster upgrade. Girls on MySpace swarm him. But the pain of losing his girlfriend isn’t gone, and he says that no matter what happens with Digg, he won’t put business first again.

The tech bust notwithstanding, the Valley is still the only place on earth where geeks with good ideas can become celebrities overnight. But wannabes be warned: As nearly everyone found out six years ago, the fall from rock star to pariah can be just as quick — and not nearly as much fun.

The New York Times reports today what may be the first case of a blogger jailed by a US federal court for not handing over sources or source materials for a story – a case that will raise no end of questions about the rights, responsibilities, and protections of citizens acting as journalists.

Josh Wolf, a 24-year-old blogger and freelancer, had shot video of a San Francisco protest over the 2005 meeting of the G8 in Scotland. Violence ensued, a police officer’s skull was fractured, and authorities say a smoke bomb or firework was put under a police car. Wolf sold some of his video to local TV stations and put more up on his blog. Prosecutors demanded that Wolf testify before a grand jury and hand over everything he shot. Wolf refused and, yesterday, a federal judge found him in contempt and sent him to prison, where he could stay until the grand jury’s term expires next summer. Soon after, a post appeared on his blog asking for donations, thoughts, and prayers under the headline, “Josh is in jail and this is his mom”.